So Jealous

Vapor / Sanctuary;
2004

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Great pop songs should be more than the sum of a few entertaining
parts. So much "pop/rock" of the past 10 years studies the Dave
Matthews songwriting handbook: Cram as many marketable hooks as
possible into three minutes, coherence be damned. Thus when Rob Thomas
and Santana teamed up for "Smooth", you may not have felt anything,
but you probably can still hum one of its cotton candy fragments.

Canadian power-pop duo Tegan and Sara take a similar approach, tossing
around seemingly unrelated, radio-ready banalities over predictable
power chords throughout their latest LP, So Jealous. There's
really no reason why these identical twins shouldn't be huge. Their
songs fuse Ashlee Simpson mall-punk with the retro 80s fetish of
former tourmate Ryan Adams' recent high-profile stinker.

Still, I can't spare So Jealous the critical scalpel just
because it's inexplicably below the mainstream radar. Co-producers
John Collins (New Pornographers) and David Carswell (Smugglers) are no
excuse, either. Collins and Carswell helped turn Tegan and Sara's
early Lilith Fair folk into Alanis Morissette-style pop/rock on 2002's
If It Was You, and their latest work takes the transformation a
step further, incorporating some trendy new-wave influences. Former
Weezer bassist Matt Sharp even takes a break from his recent Mark
Hollis-tinged solo work to turn in some vintage Rentals synth lines.
No matter, because the over-compression so common in self-consciously
commercial rock these days renders each instrument as nuanced as
Hannity & Colmes.

The first single from So Jealous, "Walking With a Ghost",
sounds like one of those dummy mp3s major labels post on KaZaA to fool
unsuspecting music lovers, where the first 10 seconds loop for five
minutes. Remember when you thought "House of Jealous Lovers" was
instrumental? "Walking With a Ghost" repeats three or four mundane
phrases-- particularly "out of my mind"-- dozens of times
in two-and-a-half-minutes, all over the same jerky, studio-polished guitar
chords. I suppose it's almost as catchy as the latest McDonalds
jingle, but it's also utterly boring.

The album's best song is the energetic "Speak Slow", with its peppy
"ah-ah" chorus. But even that hook wears out its welcome by the
seventh or eighth go-round. Tegan and Sara are lauded for their
lyrics, but languorous ballad "Fix You Up" touches on boy-band
terrain: "This love is all I have to give." I save my most mordant
chuckles for the song that transposes the riff from Cat Power's
"Free": "We Didn't Do It for the Money". Protesting a little much,
aren't we?